Advice please please please!:/

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erinacem wrote:

Soooo living with someone with horrible OCD about everything. Not like the OCD where some people have to flip a light on so many times before leaving or tap on the door... etc. I'm talking like things around the house need to be done JUST so. Now IM not a super crazy clean freak by any means but I do not love like a slob. I try hard everyday to make things just perfect for my guy, & this issue is still ACTUALLY hurting our relationship. I'm 22 weeks. We just got a house together, & he's actually talked about living seperate. Staying together as a couples but living seperate. How realistic is that really, with a baby on the way? The house we got is perfect for us and our size. I have a three yr old and one on the way. It's a 3 bedroom house, a big decent size yard, 3 blocks from the school 5 blocks from the grocery store.. I'm soooo stressed the eff out. He tells me I don't understand what consumes his mind with this, and I understand. I suffer from depression and anxiety. I understand your mind being completely consumed of something you seem to have no control over.

If his mind is so consumed and it's causing problems in your relationship than he needs to go get professional help. If he's unwilling to do that, it's just going to get worse. If he values your life together he will go see someone.

Is he actually OCD? Like diagnosed? Or is he just someone who wants everything a certain way? My friends husband makes her feel like everything she does is wrong, she cleans everything wrong if she doesn't do it exactly as he would...and even if she does it's still wrong. He's not OCD, he's just a *** lol.

Has he looked into getting help? Sounds like his OCD is a disability. How is he going to deal with a dirty baby diaper, puke, or even just dealing with a moody teenager? Being flexible and adaptable is a good thing.

Is he open to getting help? My OCD got to a point where I could barely leave my house. I finally found a therapist that works with OCD and it helped A LOT. She explained to me certain tips I could use, mine is very safety obsessed so like - I would be half way to work and have to turn around and go home and make sure I locked the front door. So she suggested I start to take a picture or video of me locking the door so I had proof and didn't need to go home. She also prescribed me medication which has been AMAZING. Now I still have certain things that I have to have control over but it's not everything.

He needs a new counselor. Unless has more problems with the relationship than just this cleaning thing, and they are unresolvable deal breakers, that's terrible advice.

He needs to hire a maid. He can take out all his cleaning demands on someone who's being paid to clean. You are not his maid, and it sounds like his standards are unrealistic for a wife to have to adhere to especially one that is pregnant and has a small child.

I would get a new counselor. That's ridiculous. Living separately doesn't help him in the long run. Her goal is supposed to help him manage his compulsions and thoughts so he can live a normal life. Living separately is a band aid. Not a solution. That sounds like a terrible counselor.

Look into a counselor that specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy. They are focused on retraining the mind and they work with a lot mental illness including obsessive compulsive disorder. Someone with OCD typically has these compulsive thoughts and actions because they believe in something irrational or bad happening if they don't indulge in those actions. People clean excessively because they associate germs with becoming sick from say something like some super rare disease that they might have seen on tv or have seen someone close to them go through. In their mind, they must clean or perform a ritual in order to protect them from something bad happening. Or someone will keep things a certain way and get irrationally upset if they aren't in that order or done that way because it raises their anxiety level to a a degree that is unmanageable. They have panic attacks, hyperventilate, cry, hide, and obsessively clean or do their rituals over and over until the anxiety is gone. Its all about control, irrational thinking, and anxiety levels.

CBT basically takes the irrational thought and turns it into a rational thought. Example would be something like: If he doesn't do XYZ this particular way, then he thinks that he doesn't have any control and something bad or negative will happen. The new rational thought would be: if he doesn't do XYZ the chances of something bad or negative happening are basically zero. Because if he looks back at every day before then, nothing bad has happened. He is still in control by telling these irrational thoughts who is in charge. Once he learns how to flip his thoughts, his anxiety will start to decrease. Which will make him feel a lot better. Which means his actions will be more rational. He will not perform as many rituals or have things to such a high level of perfection. And the more he practices it, the better he will feel. Basically he has to tell himself "it's the OCD making me feel this way. It's the OCD telling me to do this. And I don't have to listen to it. I do not have to give OCD power."

It's a long road. It's not easy and it takes a lot of work. So the counselor suggestion y'all live separately is terrible.

It sounds like he really needs to get help to manage his OCD... it's unfortunately not just something that's going to go away as you know since you suffer from anxiety and depression, Both of you need to get some therapy. It will really help. Living apart is not a way to stay with someone especially with a child, At this point it shouldn't even be on the table as an option, It will fail.

Is he diagnosed with OCD? I suggest you read about what OCD is and then look at ways you can support him. I've been diagnosed with OCD and it isn't just cleaning. It goes beyond that. There's certain things you have to do to stop the thoughts in your head. It's hard. It's horrible. It's anxiety driven. And it's endless at the moment. Help him help himself :-)